Access

If You Use a Screen Reader

This content is available through Read Online (Free) program, which relies on page scans. Since scans are not currently available to screen readers, please contact JSTOR User Support for access. We'll provide a PDF copy for your screen reader.

The "moving wall" represents the time period between the last issue
available in JSTOR and the most recently published issue of a journal.
Moving walls are generally represented in years. In rare instances, a
publisher has elected to have a "zero" moving wall, so their current
issues are available in JSTOR shortly after publication.
Note: In calculating the moving wall, the current year is not counted.
For example, if the current year is 2008 and a journal has a 5 year
moving wall, articles from the year 2002 are available.

Terms Related to the Moving Wall

Fixed walls: Journals with no new volumes being added to the archive.

Absorbed: Journals that are combined with another title.

Complete: Journals that are no longer published or that have been
combined with another title.

Abstract

Qalʿat Selaʿ in northern Edom and Umm el-Biara in the Petra region are two natural rock platforms surrounded by chasms, on both of which strongholds had been established. From the Bible (Kings II 14:7) we learn of 'The Rock' (Selaʿ in Hebrew) conquered by King Amaziah during his war against the Edomites. According to Hieronymus of Cardia, writing about 400 years after the event, a Greek army failed to take the Nabatean Rock (Petra in Greek). For many years both the Edomite 'Rock' and the Nabatean 'Rock' have intermittently been identified with either of these sites. A monumental rock relief, discovered not long ago at the top of a high cliff in Qalʿat Selaʿ, has been ascribed — based on the iconography — to Nabonidus, King of Babylon. A recently-deciphered segment of the relief reinforces this ascription, and is here published for the first time. It provides evidence of the presence of Nabonidus in Edom, an issue that has hitherto been open to debate; it also supports identifying the biblical Selaʿ with this site. A chain of other recently-discovered Edomite rock strongholds are consistent with the survival strategy of the Edomites as recorded in the prophetic literature of the time. Selaʿ, proximate to the capital of Edom, was the stronghold of last resort. Its fall to Amaziah was commemorated in the Bible, while its conquest by Nabonidus, about 200 years later, was apparently commemorated by the rock relief at the site.